India's Supreme Court strikes down 157-year-old ban on gay sex
On Thursday, India's Supreme Court ruled that a 157-year-old law that criminalized gay sex "is irrational, arbitrary, and manifestly unconstitutional," as Chief Justice Dipak Misra said in reading the opinion. The colonial-era law, known as section 377, made certain "unnatural offenses," like "carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman, or animal," punishable by up to 10 years in jail. It technically banned all anal and oral sex, BBC News reports, but it was used primarily against same-sex couples. The Delhi high court struck the law down in 2009, but the Supreme Court reinstated it four years later.
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